Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko ( rus, Никола́й Васи́льевич Крыле́нко, p=krɨˈlʲenkə; May 2, 1885 – July 29, 1938) was an
Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik (russian: ста́рый большеви́к, ''stary bolshevik''), also called Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Par ...
and
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
. Krylenko served in a variety of posts in the
Soviet legal system, rising to become
People's Commissar for Justice and Prosecutor General of the
Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. He was executed during the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
.
Krylenko was an exponent of
socialist legality
Socialist law or Soviet law denotes a general type of legal system which has been (and continues to be) used in socialist and formerly socialist states. It is based on the civil law system, with major modifications and additions from Marxis ...
and the theory that political considerations, rather than criminal guilt or innocence, should guide the application of punishment. Although participating in the
Show Trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
s and political repression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Krylenko was later caught up as a victim and arrested during the Great Purge of the late 1930s. Following interrogation and torture by the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
, Krylenko confessed to extensive involvement in
wrecking and
anti-Soviet agitation
Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) (russian: антисове́тская агита́ция и пропага́нда (АСА)) was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. To begin with the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolu ...
. After a trial of 20 minutes, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court, and executed immediately afterwards.
Biography
Early life and education
Krylenko was born in
Bekhteyevo, in
Sychyovsky Uyezd Sychyovsky Uyezd (''Сычёвский уезд'') was one of the subdivisions of the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire. It was situated in the northeastern part of the governorate. Its administrative centre was Sychyovka.
Demographics
At ...
of
Smolensk Governorate, the eldest of six children (two sons and four daughters) born to a
populist revolutionary and his wife. His father, needing income to support his growing family, became a tax collector for the Tsarist government.
The young Krylenko joined the Bolshevik faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
(RSDLP) in 1904 while studying history and literature at
St. Petersburg University, where he was known to fellow students as Comrade Abram. He was a member of the short-lived
St. Petersburg Soviet
The Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Delegates (later the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies) was a workers' council, or soviet, in Saint Petersburg in 1905.
Origins
The Soviet had its origins in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, when Nicholas I ...
during the
Russian Revolution of 1905 and a member of the Bolshevik St. Petersburg Committee. He had to flee Russia in June 1906, but returned later that year. Arrested by the
Tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
's secret police in 1907, Krylenko was released for lack of evidence, but soon exiled to
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...
(present-day Poland) without trial.
Krylenko returned to St. Petersburg in 1909 and finished his degree. He left the RSDLP in 1911, but soon rejoined it. He was drafted in 1912 and was promoted to
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank.
Australia
The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
before being discharged in 1913. After working as an assistant editor of ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...
'' and a liaison to the Bolshevik faction in the
Duma
A duma (russian: дума) is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions.
The term ''boyar duma'' is used to refer to advisory councils in Russia from the 10th to 17th centuries. Starting in the 18th century, city dumas were for ...
for a few months, Krylenko was arrested again in 1913 and exiled to
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.[Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...]
.
At the outbreak of
the Great War in August 1914, he moved to neutral
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
as a Russian national. In the summer of 1915,
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
sent Krylenko back to Russia to help rebuild the Bolshevik underground organization. In November 1915 Krylenko was arrested in Moscow as a
draft dodger and, after a few months in prison, sent to the South West Front in April 1916.
1917 revolutions
After the
February Revolution
The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
of 1917 and the introduction of elected committees in the Russian armed forces, Krylenko was elected chairman of his regiment's and then division's committee. On April 15 he was elected chairman of the 11th Army's committee. After Lenin's return to Russia in April 1917, Krylenko adopted the new Bolshevik policy of irreconcilable opposition to the
Provisional Government
A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...
. He had to resign his post on May 26, 1917, for lack of support from non-Bolshevik members of the Army committee.
In June 1917 Krylenko was made a member of the Bolshevik Military Organization and was elected to the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets. At the Congress, he was elected to the permanent
All-Russian Central Executive Committee
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee ( rus, Всероссийский Центральный Исполнительный Комитет, Vserossiysky Centralny Ispolnitelny Komitet, VTsIK) was the highest legislative, administrative and r ...
from the Bolshevik faction. Krylenko left Petrograd for the High Command HQ in
Mogilev
Mogilev (russian: Могилёв, Mogilyov, ; yi, מאָלעוו, Molev, ) or Mahilyow ( be, Магілёў, Mahilioŭ, ) is a city in eastern Belarus, on the Dnieper River, about from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from the bor ...
on July 2, but was arrested there by the
Provisional government
A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...
after the Bolsheviks staged an abortive uprising on July 4. He was kept in prison in Petrograd, but was released in mid-September after the
Kornilov Affair.
Krylenko took an active part in preparing the
October Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd as newly elected chairman of the Congress of Northern Region Soviets and a leading member of the
Military Revolutionary Committee. On October 16, ten days before the uprising, he reported to the Bolshevik Central Committee that the Petrograd military would support the Bolsheviks in case of an uprising. During the Bolshevik takeover on October 24 and 25, Krylenko was one of the uprising's leaders, along with
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
,
Adolph Joffe, and
Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko.
Head of the Red Army
At the Second All Russian Congress of Soviets on October 25, Krylenko was made a People's Commissar (minister) and member of the triumvirate (with
Pavel Dybenko and
Nikolai Podvoisky
Nikolai Ilyich Podvoisky (russian: Николай Ильич Подвойский; February 16 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S_February_4.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O.S_February_4">Old_Style_and_New_S ...
) responsible for military affairs. In early November (
Old Style) 1917, immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power, Krylenko helped
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
suppress an attempt by Provisional Government loyalists, led by
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, ; Reforms of Russian orthography, original spelling: ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months ...
and General
Peter Krasnov
Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov ( rus, Пётр Николаевич Краснов; 22 September (old style: 10 September) 1869 – 17 January 1947), sometimes referred to in English as Peter Krasnov, was a Don Cossack historian and officer, promot ...
, to
retake Petrograd.
After the Provisional
Commander in Chief (and Chief of
General Staff
A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military un ...
), General
Nikolai Dukhonin, refused to open peace negotiations with the Germans, Krylenko (an Ensign at this point) was appointed as Commander in Chief on November 9. He started negotiations with representatives of the German army on November 12–13. Krylenko arrived at the High Command HQ in Mogilev on November 20 and arrested General Dukhonin, who was bayoneted and shot to death by
Red Guards answering to Krylenko. After the formation of the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
on January 15, 1918 (
Old Style; January 28 in
New Style), Krylenko was a member of the All-Russian Collegium that oversaw its buildup. He proved to be an excellent public speaker, able to win over hostile mobs with words alone. His organizational talents, however, lagged far behind his oratorical ones.
Krylenko supported the policy of democratization of the Russian military, including abolishing subordination, providing for election of officers by enlisted men, and using propaganda to win over enemy units. Although the Red Army had some successes in early 1918 against small and poorly armed
anti-Bolshevik detachments, the policy proved unsuccessful when Soviet forces were
roundly defeated by the
Imperial German Army
The Imperial German Army (1871–1919), officially referred to as the German Army (german: Deutsches Heer), was the unified ground and air force of the German Empire. It was established in 1871 with the political unification of Germany under the l ...
in late February 1918 after the breakdown of the
Brest-Litovsk
Brest ( be, Брэст / Берасьце, Bieraście, ; russian: Брест, ; uk, Берестя, Berestia; lt, Brasta; pl, Brześć; yi, בריסק, Brisk), formerly Brest-Litovsk (russian: Брест-Литовск, lit=Lithuanian Br ...
negotiations.
In his 1918 essay ''Scythians?'',
Yevgeny Zamyatin, an
Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik (russian: ста́рый большеви́к, ''stary bolshevik''), also called Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Par ...
who is now considered the first
Soviet dissident cited Krylenko as an example of the ugliness and repression within the new
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. Zamyatin wrote, "
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...
on
Golgotha
Calvary ( la, Calvariae or ) or Golgotha ( grc-gre, Γολγοθᾶ, ''Golgothâ'') was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was said to have been crucified according to the canonical Gospels. Since at least the early mediev ...
, between two thieves, bleeding to death drop by drop, is the victor - because he has been crucified, because, in practical terms, he has been vanquished. But Christ victorious in practical terms is the
Grand Inquisitor. And worse, Christ victorious in practical terms is a paunchy priest in a silk-lined purple robe, who dispenses benedictions with his right hand and collects donations with his left. The Fair Lady, in legal marriage, is simply Mrs. So-and-So, with hair curlers at night and a migraine in the morning. And
Marx, having come down to earth, is simply a Krylenko. Such is the irony and such is the wisdom of fate. Wisdom because this ironic law holds the pledge of eternal movement forward. The realization, materialisation, practical victory of an idea immediately gives it a
philistine
The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, when ...
hue. And the true
Scythian will smell from a mile away the odor of dwellings, the odor of cabbage soup, the odor of the priest in his purple cassock, the odor of Krylenko -- and will hasten away from the dwellings, into the
steppe
In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.
Steppe biomes may include:
* the montane grasslands and shrublands biome
* the temperate grasslands, ...
, to freedom."
Later in the same essay, Zamyatin quoted a recent poem by
Andrei Bely
Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev ( rus, Бори́с Никола́евич Буга́ев, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ bʊˈɡajɪf, a=Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev.ru.vorb.oga), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely ( rus, Андре ...
and used it to further criticize Krylenko and those like him, for having, "covered Russia with a pile of carcasses," and for, "dreaming of
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
-
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
ic wars in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
- throughout the world, throughout the universe! But let us not jest incautiously. Bely is honest, and did not ''intend'' to speak about the Krylenkos."
In the wake of the defeats, Trotsky pushed for the formation of a military council of former Russian generals that would function as a Red Army advisory body. Lenin and the Bolshevik Central Committee agreed to create a Supreme Military Council on March 4, appointing
Mikhail Bonch-Bruyevich, former chief of the imperial General Staff, as its head. At that point the entire Bolshevik leadership of the Red Army, including People's Commissar (defense minister) Nikolai Podvoisky and Krylenko, protested vigorously and eventually resigned. The office of the "Commander in Chief" was formally abolished by the Soviet government on March 13, and Krylenko was reassigned to the Collegium of the
Commissariat for Justice.
Legal career (1918-1934)
From May 1918 and until 1922, Krylenko was Chairman of the
Revolutionary Tribunal of the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee ( rus, Всероссийский Центральный Исполнительный Комитет, Vserossiysky Centralny Ispolnitelny Komitet, VTsIK) was the highest legislative, administrative and r ...
. He simultaneously served as a member of the Collegium of Prosecutors of the Revolutionary Tribunal.
In May 1918, Leon Trotsky ordered that
Soviet Navy Admiral
Alexei Shchastny be put on trial for having refused to scuttle the Baltic Fleet. After a trial prosecuted by Krylenko, the presiding judge, Karklin, sentenced the Admiral, "To be shot within twenty four hours." Attendees reacted with dismay as Lenin had abolished the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
on October 28, 1917. Krylenko said to those present, "What are you worrying about? Executions have been abolished. But Shchastny is not being executed; he is being shot." The sentence was carried out soon after.
Krylenko was an enthusiastic proponent of the
Red Terror
The Red Terror (russian: Красный террор, krasnyj terror) in Soviet Russia was a campaign of political repression and executions carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. It started in lat ...
, whatever his differences with the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
(the Soviet secret police), exclaiming, "We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more."
In early 1919, Krylenko was involved in a dispute with the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
and was instrumental in taking away its right to execute people without a trial . In 1922 Krylenko became Deputy Commissar of Justice and assistant
Prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...
General of the
RSFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
, in which capacity he served as the chief prosecutor at the Moscow
show trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
s of the 1920s.
Cieplak Trial
In the spring of 1923, Krylenko acted as
public prosecutor in the
Moscow show trial of the Soviet Union's
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
hierarchy. The defendants included
Archbishop
In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...
Jan Cieplak
Jan Cieplak (17 August 1857 – 17 February 1926) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and archbishop.
Early life
Jan Cieplak was born in Dąbrowa Górnicza, Congress Poland, in 1857 to an impoverished family of the Polish nobility. He attended the ...
,
Monsignor
Monsignor (; it, monsignore ) is an honorific form of address or title for certain male clergy members, usually members of the Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" ca ...
Konstanty Budkiewicz, and
Blessed
Blessed may refer to:
* The state of having received a blessing
* Blessed, a title assigned by the Roman Catholic Church to someone who has been beatified
Film and television
* ''Blessed'' (2004 film), a 2004 motion picture about a supernatural ...
Leonid Feodorov
Leonid Ivanovich Feodorov (russian: Леонид Иванович Фёдоров; 4 November 1879 – 7 March 1935) was a Studite hieromonk from the Russian Greek Catholic Church, the first Exarch of the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of R ...
, the
Exarch
An exarch (;
from Ancient Greek ἔξαρχος ''exarchos'', meaning “leader”) was the holder of any of various historical offices, some of them being political or military and others being ecclesiastical.
In the late Roman Empire and ea ...
of the
Russian Greek Catholic Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow,_Catholic_Church_in_Presnya.jpg
, imagewidth = 200px
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
, abbreviation =
, ty ...
.
According to Father Christopher Lawrence Zugger,
"The Bolsheviks had already orchestrated several 'show trials.' The Cheka had staged the 'Trial of the St. Petersburg Combat Organization'; its successor, the new GPU, the 'Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries
The Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries was an internationally publicized political trial in Soviet Russia, which brought twelve prominent members of the anti-Bolshevik Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (PSR) before the bar. The trial, which ...
.' In these and other such farces, defendants were inevitably sentenced to death or to long prison terms in the north. The Cieplak show trial is a prime example of Bolshevik revolutionary justice at this time. Normal judicial procedures did not restrict revolutionary tribunals at all; in fact, the prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...
N.V. Krylenko, stated that the courts could trample upon the rights of classes other than the proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
. Appeals from the courts went not to a higher court, but to political committees. Western observers found the setting -- the grand ballroom of a former Noblemen's Club, with painted cherubs
A cherub (; plural cherubim; he, כְּרוּב ''kərūḇ'', pl. ''kərūḇīm'', likely borrowed from a derived form of akk, 𒅗𒊏𒁍 ''karabu'' "to bless" such as ''karibu'', "one who blesses", a name for the lamassu) is one of the u ...
on the ceiling -- singularly inappropriate for such a solemn event. Neither judges nor prosecutors were required to have a legal background, only a proper 'revolutionary' one. That the prominent 'No Smoking' signs were ignored by the judges themselves did not bode well for legalities."
According to ''
New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''.
His ...
'' correspondent
Francis MacCullagh:
Archbishop Cieplak and Monsignor Budkiewicz were both sentenced to death. The other fifteen defendants were sentenced to long terms in
Solovki prison camp
The Solovki special camp (later the Solovki special prison), was set up in 1923 on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea as a remote and inaccessible place of detention, primarily intended for socialist opponents of Soviet Russia's new Bolshev ...
. The sentences touched off a massive uproar throughout the Western world.
According to Father Zugger,
"The Vatican, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, Poland, Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
, and the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
undertook frantic efforts to save the Archbishop and his chancellor. In Moscow, the ministers from the Polish, British, Czechoslovak, and Italian missions appealed 'on the grounds of humanity,' and Poland offered to exchange any prisoner to save the archbishop and the monsignor. Finally, on March 29, the Archbishop's sentence was commuted to ten years in prison, ... but the Monsignor was not to be spared. Again, there were appeals from foreign powers, from Western Socialists and Church leaders alike. These appeals were for naught: Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...
editorialized on March 30 that the tribunal was defending the rights of the workers, who had been oppressed by the bourgeois system for centuries with the aid of priests. Pro-Communist foreigners who intervened for the two men were also condemned as 'compromisers with the priestly servants of the bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
.' ...Father Rutkowski recorded later that Budkiewicz surrendered himself over to the will of God without reservation. On Easter Sunday, the world was told that the Monsignor was still alive, and Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
Pius XI publicly prayed at St. Peter's that the Soviets would spare his life. Moscow officials told foreign ministers and reporters that the Monsignor's sentence was just, and that the Soviet Union was a sovereign nation that would accept no interference. In reply to an appeal from the rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
s of New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to spare Budkiewicz's life, ''Pravda'' wrote a blistering editorial against 'Jewish bankers who rule the world' and bluntly warned that the Soviets would kill Jewish opponents of the Revolution as well. Only on April 4 did the truth finally emerge: the Monsignor had already been in the grave for three days. When the news came to Rome, Pope Pius fell to his knees and wept as he prayed for the priest's soul. To make matters worse, Cardinal Gasparri had just finished reading a note from the Soviets saying that 'everything was proceeding satisfactorily' when he was handed the telegram announcing the execution. On March 31, 1923, Holy Saturday, at 11:30 PM, after a week of fervent prayers and a firm declaration that he was ready to be sacrificed for his sins, Monsignor Constantine Budkiewicz had been taken from his cell and, sometime before the dawn of Easter Sunday, shot in the back of the head on the steps of the Lubyanka prison.
Later career
Krylenko was appointed State Prosecutor in 1928, and acted as prosecutor in the first three show trials staged after
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
had taken control of the communist party. At the
Shakhty Trial, in 1928, Krylenko called for death sentences for all 52 defendants. He was also the prosecutor at the
Industrial Party Trial
The Industrial Party Trial (November 25 – December 7, 1930) (russian: Процесс Промпартии, Trial of the ''Prompartiya'') was a show trial in which several Soviet scientists and economists were accused and convicted of plottin ...
in 1930, and the
Menshevik Trial The Menshevik Trial was one of the early purges carried out by Stalin in which 14 economists, who were former members of the Menshevik party, were put on trial and convicted for trying to re-establish their party as the "Union Bureau of the Menshev ...
in 1931, at which he called for death sentences for five of the 14 defendants.
In 1931 Krylenko became
Commissar of Justice. He stepped down as Prosecutor General in 1932 and was replaced by
Andrei Vyshinsky
Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (russian: Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский; pl, Andrzej Wyszyński) ( – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.
He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph S ...
. In 1933, Krylenko was awarded the
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...
.
In January 1933, he waxed indignant about the leniency of some Soviet officials who objected to the infamous "five ears law":
From 1927 to 1934, Krylenko was a member of the
Central Control Commission of the Communist Party.
Sport positions
In the 1930s Krylenko headed the Soviet
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
,
checkers and
mountain climbing
Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, a ...
associations. He was one of the pioneers of the
Pamirs
The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world' ...
mountain climbing, leading the Soviet half of a joint Soviet-German expedition in 1928 as well as expeditions to the Eastern Pamirs in 1931 and to the
Lenin Peak in 1934. Krylenko used his positions to carry out the Stalinist line of total control and politicization of all areas of public life:
According to British Grandmaster
Daniel King, Krylenko's work promoting Chess was an extension of his role in the Soviet anti-religious campaigns; "The Bolsheviks' motives for promoting Chess were both ideological and political. They hoped that this logical and rational game might wean the masses away from belief in the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
; but they also wanted to prove the intellectual superiority of the Soviet people over the capitalist nations. Put simply, it was part of world domination.
"With Chess, they hit upon a winner: equipment was cheap to produce; tournaments relatively easy to organize; and they were already building on an existing tradition. Soon there were Chess clubs in factories, on farms, in the army... This vast social experiment quickly bore fruit."
In 1935, Krylenko invited the former chess World Champion
Emanuel Lasker to Soviet Union, where he settled until 1937.
Theorist of the Soviet Justice System
According to his
brother in law
A sibling-in-law is the spouse of one's sibling, or the sibling of one's spouse, or the person who is married to the sibling of one's spouse.Cambridge Dictionaries Online.Family: non-blood relations.
More commonly, a sibling-in-law is referred ...
Max Eastman, Krylenko was "gentle-hearted and poetic in his youth" but "hardened up under Lenin's influence" to become "a ruthless Bolshevik". Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, he wrote dozens of books and articles in support of his philosophy of "
socialist legality
Socialist law or Soviet law denotes a general type of legal system which has been (and continues to be) used in socialist and formerly socialist states. It is based on the civil law system, with major modifications and additions from Marxis ...
."
According to Krylenko, political considerations rather than evidence needed to play the decisive role in deciding the verdict and sentence before trial. He further argued that even a confession obtained under torture constituted proof of a defendant's guilt; material evidence, precise definitions of a crime, or judicial sentencing guidelines were not needed under socialism.
Mikhail Yakubovich, a defendant in one of the show trials, described meeting with Krylenko after weeks of torture by the
OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU; russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление) was the intelligence and state security service and secret police of the Soviet Union f ...
to discuss his upcoming trial:
Krylenko promoted his views on socialist legality during the work on two drafts of the Soviet Penal Code, one in 1930 and one in 1934. Krylenko's views were opposed by some Soviet theoreticians, including Soviet Prosecutor General
Andrey Vyshinsky. According to Vyshinsky, Krylenko's imprecise definition of crimes and his refusal to define terms of punishment introduced legal instability and arbitrariness and were, therefore, against the interests of the Party. Their debates continued throughout 1935 and were inconclusive.
With the start of the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
after
Sergei Kirov
Sergei Mironovich Kirov (né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge.
Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and membe ...
's assassination on December 1, 1934, Krylenko's star began to fade and Stalin began to increasingly favor Vyshinsky. Notably, it was Vyshinsky and not Krylenko who prosecuted the first two high-profile
Moscow show trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the ...
of
Old Bolsheviks
Old Bolshevik (russian: ста́рый большеви́к, ''stary bolshevik''), also called Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Par ...
in August 1936 and January 1937. Krylenko's ally, the Marxist theoretician
Eugen Pashukanis, was subjected to severe
criticism
Criticism is the construction of a judgement about the negative qualities of someone or something. Criticism can range from impromptu comments to a written detailed response. , ''"the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the good or bad q ...
in late 1936 and arrested in January 1937 and shot in September. Soon after Pashukanis's arrest, Krylenko was forced to publicly "admit his mistakes" and concede that Vyshinsky and his allies had been right all along.
In 1936 Krylenko justified the inclusion of a law against male
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
in the 1934 Soviet penal code as a measure directed against subversive activities:
Fall from power and execution
Krylenko was promoted to Commissar of Justice of the USSR on July 20, 1936, and was directly involved in the first waves of
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
's
Great Purges between 1935 and 1938. However, at the first session of the newly reorganized
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Верховный Совет Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, r=Verkhovnyy Sovet Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respubl ...
in January 1938, he was denounced by an up-and-coming Stalinist,
Mir Jafar Baghirov:
The attack had been carefully prepared in advance and
Molotov endorsed it. In response, Stalin removed Krylenko from his post on January 19, 1938, turning the Commissariat over to his replacement, N. M. Rychkov. Leaving the Kremlin, Krylenko and his family traveled to his
dacha outside
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
. On the evening of January 31, 1938, Krylenko received a phone call from Stalin, who told him, saying: "Don't get upset. We trust you. Keep doing the work you were assigned to on the new legal code." This phone call calmed Krylenko, but later that evening his home was raided by an
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
squad. Krylenko and his family were arrested.
After three days of interrogation and torture by the NKVD, Krylenko "confessed" that he had been a "
wrecker" since 1930. On April 3, he made an additional statement, claiming to have been an enemy of Lenin before the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
. During his last interrogation on June 28, 1938, Krylenko named thirty Commissariat of Justice officials whom he had allegedly recruited into an
anti-Soviet conspiracy.
Nikolai Krylenko was tried by the
Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court on July 29, 1938. In accordance with Krylenko's own theories of socialist legality, the verdict and sentence had been decided in advance. The trial lasted only twenty minutes, just long enough for Krylenko to retract his false confessions. After being found guilty, he was taken away and immediately shot once in the back of the head.
Personality
The writer
Razumnik Ivanov-Razumnik
Razumnik Vasilyevich Ivanov-Razumnik (real surname - Ivanov; Разумник Васильевич Иванов-Разумник; 24 December 1878, in Tiflis, Georgia, then Russian Empire – 9 July 1946, in Munich, Germany) was a Soviet Russian wr ...
was in prison with Krylenko in 1938, and described him as "notorious and universally disliked". This seems to have a common view. The British agent
Robert Bruce Lockhart
Sir Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart, KCMG (2 September 1887 – 27 February 1970) was a British diplomat, journalist, author, secret agent and footballer. His 1932 book ''Memoirs of a British Agent''Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, ''Memoirs of a Brit ...
described him as "an epileptic degenerate" and "the most repulsive type". Covering the Industrial Party trial, the American journalist
Eugene Lyons
Eugene Lyons (July 1, 1898 – January 7, 1985) was an American journalist and writer. A fellow traveler of Communism in his younger years, Lyons became highly critical of the Soviet Union after several years there as a correspondent of United ...
was struck by how "Prosecutor Krylenko's bullet-head shone in the arc-lights, his flat Scythian features tensed in his cruel sneer." Another journalist, William Reswick, watched Krylenko summing up for the prosecution at the Shakhty Trial:
Legacy
The NKVD officer who had taken Krylenko's testimony, one Kogan, probably Captain Lazar V. Kogan, who also interrogated
Nicolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory.
...
and
Genrikh Yagoda
Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda ( rus, Ге́нрих Григо́рьевич Яго́да, Genrikh Grigor'yevich Yagoda, born Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda; 7 November 1891 – 15 March 1938) was a Soviet secret police official who served as director ...
,
[Nikita Petrov and Marc Jansen, ''Stalin’s Loyal Executioner: People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov 1895–1940'', 04 April 2002, , page 62 (chapter 3), available online at]
was, in turn, shot in 1939 (probably, on March 2) for "anti-Soviet activity". Krylenko's conviction was one of the first annulled by the Soviet State in 1955, during the
Khrushchev thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw ( rus, хрущёвская о́ттепель, r=khrushchovskaya ottepel, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfskəjə ˈotʲ:ɪpʲɪlʲ or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period ...
.
Krylenko's ex-wife and fellow Old Bolshevik
Elena Rozmirovich
Elena Fedorovna Rozmirovich-Troyanovskaya (russian: Елена Федоровна Розмирович, 10 March 1886 – 30 August 1953) was a Russian revolutionary and politician and later an official in the Soviet Union. In 1917 she was one of ...
survived the purges by keeping a low profile and working in the Party archives.
His sister
Elena Krylenko
Elena may refer to:
People
* Elena (given name), including a list of people and characters with this name
* Joan Ignasi Elena (born 1968), Catalan politician
* Francine Elena (born 1986), British poet
Geography
* Elena (town), a town in Velik ...
worked for
Maxim Litvinov in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (although she was never a member of the Party); in 1924 she decided to leave Russia with the American writer
Max Eastman (who had been in Russia for almost two years, researching and writing a life of
Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...
). To enable her to leave, Litvinov agreed to pass her off as a member of his delegation when he travelled to London for an international conference. But she could not leave the delegation and remain in a free country without a passport, which the Bolsheviks would not give her. So, in the hours before their train left, she and Max Eastman got married. They were still married and living in
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
when she died in 1956. Thus she escaped the purges.
[Eastman, pp.435–6]
Furthermore, Krylenko's creation of what was later dubbed "The Soviet Chess Machine" led Soviet Grandmasters to dominate the
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the World Chess ...
for most of the remainder of the 20th century, producing a string of
World Chess Champion
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match ...
s including
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, ( – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist and was a pioneer in computer chess.
Botvinnik ...
,
Vasily Smyslov,
Mikhail Tal,
Tigran Petrosian,
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky ( rus, Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский, Borís Vasíl'yevich Spásskiy; born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 ...
,
Anatoly Karpov, and
Garry Kasparov.
Notes
# See Arthur Ransome. ''In 1919'', Kessinger Publishing, 2004, p. 49
# See Israel Getzler. ''Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat'', Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 177
# See Arthur Ransome, op. cit, p. 46
# See Audrey Salkeld. ''On the Edge of Europe: Mountaineering in the Caucasus'', London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1993, p. 164
# Quoted in Robert Conquest. ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment'', Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 249
# See David Tuller. ''Cracks in the Iron Closet: Travels in Gay and Lesbian Russia'', University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. 6
# See Hiroshi Oda. "Criminal Law Reform in the Soviet Union under Stalin", in ''The Distinctiveness of Soviet Law'', Dordrecht, the Netherlands, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987, p. 90-92
# Quoted from the official protocols published in 1938 by Roy A. Medvedev in "New Pages from the Political Biography of Stalin" published in ''Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation'', edited by Robert C. Tucker, originally published by W.W. Norton and Co in 1977, revised edition published by Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick, New Jersey) in 1999, p. 217
# See Donald D. Barry and Yuri Feofanov. ''Politics and Justice in Russia: Major Trials of the Post-Stalin Era'', New York, M. E. Sharpe, 1996, , p. 233.
# See Barbara Evans Clements. ''Bolshevik Women'', Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 287.
# See, e.g., Richard Kennedy. ''Dreams in the Mirror: A Biography of E. E. Cummings'', New York, W. W. Norton and Co., 1980, (2nd, 1994 edition) p. 382
Resources
Works (in English)
*N. V. Krylenko. ''A blow at Intervention. Final indictment in the case of the counter-revolutionary Organisation of the Union of Engineers’ Organisations (the Industrial Party) whereby Ramzin, Kalinnikof, Larichef, Charnowsky, Fedotof, Kupriyánof, Ochkin and Sitnin, the accused, are charged in accordance with article 58, paragraphs 3, 4, and 6 of the Criminal code of the RSFSR''. Pref. by Karl Radek. Moscow, State Publishers, 1931.
*N. V. Krylenko. ''Red and white terror'', London, Communist Party of Great Britain, 1928.
*N. V. Krylenko. ''Revolutionary law''. Moscow, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R., 1933.
References
*
*Anatolii Pavlovich Shikman (А.П. Шикман). ''Important Figures of Russian History: A Biographical Dictionary'' (''Деятели отечественной истории. Биографический справочник.'') in 2 volumes. Moscow, AST, 1997, (vol 1) (vol 2)
*Konstantin Aleksandrovich Zalesskii (К.А. Залесский). Stalin's Empire: A Biographical Encyclopedic Dictionary. (''Империя Сталина. Биографический энциклопедический словарь.'') Moscow, Veche, 2000,
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krylenko, Nikolai
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